Press Release
Schools Music Festival
This year’s Shetland Schools Music Festival will take place the week beginning 19 March 2012. Parents, and the public alike, can take part in this celebration of music making and see firsthand the extensive musical talent that is coming through the school system.
This year the performance related element of the festival will be open to primary school children. This is an exciting opportunity for young musicians to build their confidence and demonstrate their learning on a different platform. As well as the individual performances, there will also be class groups coming together to perform the musical pieces they have been working on throughout the year. Secondary and upper primary groups will be offered an accompanying workshop programme ensuring that music can be accessed more widely in schools.
The Junior and Senior ‘Young Musicians of the Year’ competition(s), an integral element of the festival, will be held in the Lerwick Town Hall on the evening of Wednesday 21 March. A guest judge (yet to be announced) will have the challenging task of selecting the winners for both sections of this competition. There will also be a celebration of all the fantastic music making that goes on with a large Gala Concert on Thursday 22 March.
An important element of the festival is musical adjudication, where an experienced individual provides all the participating young musicians with a constructive over-view and feedback, aimed at supporting their ongoing musical development. Recently retired music instructor Neil Morris has been named as the adjudicator for the 2012 festival. Neil has many years experience as a teacher, adjudicator and professional musician and is said to be “looking forward to the challenge”.
The workshop programme will run throughout the festival week - thanks to funding provided by Creative Scotland’s ‘Youth Music Initiative’. This year representatives from the ‘National Youth Choir of Scotland’ (NYCoS) will be in Shetland to offer a series of choir orientated singing workshops involving a wide range of our pupils. It is hoped that as many pupils as possible will make a contribution to this exciting opportunity, no experience necessary! The final results of the workshops will form an integral part of the closing gala concert. This, in itself, should make the concert a ‘not-to-be- missed’ event.
The Shetland Schools Music Festival is organised annually by a working group comprised of music and instrumental staff and head teachers. However, this year is proving a particularly challenging one for the group who have, over the past few months been facing the with-drawl of the external funding package previously provided and used to deliver the festival itself. The working group are increasingly having to rely on the goodwill of many of those involved to keep the festival running costs to an absolute minimum. There are ongoing fundraising attempts in order to raise money to support and deliver the festival. The working group feels that it is vitally important the ‘Shetland Schools Music Festival’ continues both due to its long history within Shetland and as an important focus within Curriculum for Excellence.
A spokesperson for the group said “The festival is very important for all involved in order to make the many hours of commitment and practising in isolation worthwhile and also to celebrate local music making, especially that involving our young people, in all its forms. It is also a terrific opportunity for parents and the general public to witness what is being achieved musically within schools on a day-to-day basis”.
To support the delivery of this year’s festival the working group are currently looking for donations and perhaps sponsorship to ensure the festival can survive and be delivered as normal. If you have been involved or touched by the Festival in the past, would like to see it continue and feel you could offer some level of financial support toward achieving this aim please contact Sarah Henry, Training & Development Officer sarah.henry@shetland.gov.uk or 01595 744058